Surprise, we’re prepared to be online everywhere! Being online when you are sightseeing can be a real benefit in Tokyo and also in the other parts of Japan. One of the biggest advantages from being always online is that you can use the following website and/or app hypermedia.com with english information regarding the train tables and possible routes.

Besides that in Japan real street names and signs are very uncommon and you would probably need to use maps more as during other citytrips and with our smartphones we have better possibilities in finding our way to restaurant, tourist attractions and more… 

So what did we do for this trip? I’ve selected a local mobile data service rental company, it’s called Global Advanced Communications. At first I wanted to use our own MiFi (Portable Hotspot) but since the price and the speed when renting a local MiFi is much better I went for that solution this time.

We’ve rented the Pocket WiFi with 75 Mbps, which is extremely fast, if we are really able to reach that download speed it would be 3 times faster as at home over DSL, I can’t wait to run the first Speedtest with the device. It will be delivered to our hotel for free and we can drop it in a mailbox on the airport when we go back home again.

About two weeks after we booked our flight we have finished our travelling schedule and we’ve completed the hotel bookings. We both think that we have selected some great hotels at good locations for very good prices. After landing at Narita Airport we will either take the Limited Express or the Airport Limousine Bus directly to our hotel, this will depend on how fast we can get through customs.

The first hotel of this vacation will be “The Strings by Intercontinental Tokyo” located just outside the East exit of Shinagawa Station (see the red circle). This station marks the zero kilometer spot of the Yamanote Line, this is the busiest and most important one of all metro lines in Tokyo (東京) and transport more passengers as the London Underground. Besides the metro it’s also one of the stations along the Tōkaidō Shinkansen Line which is the busiest high-speed rail route in the whole world. After staying 4 nights in the “The Strings by Intercontinental Tokyo” we will take the Nozomi Shinkansen towards Kyoto (京都市).

In Kyoto we stay again in a Hotel from the IHG Group, here we will stay in the “ANA Crowne Plaza Kyoto”. In Kyoto we will visit some temples and we hope to see the first cherry blossoms, although we are probably at least one week to early.

After one night in Kyoto we continue travelling with the Shinkansen towards Hiroshima (広島市). In Hiroshima we will also stay one night in the “Crowne Plaza ANA Hiroshima”. From Hiroshima we would take the Nozomi Shinkansen back to Shinagawa (Tokyo), and if possible in a Green Seat (First Class) since this 887,5 kilometer long train ride will still take 238 minutes.

In Tokyo we will stay in the same hotel again for the remaining 5 nights of our vacation.